It's been a while since I've written here. I thought this might be a good time to start writing again. It's a promise I make to myself a few times a year, to write more for my own enjoyment. And like the White Sox after the All-Star break, it's a promise too often broken.
We normally spend New Year's Eve in another city - last year it was DC, Toronto the year before that. This year, having traveled quite a bit (San Francisco, Prague and Budapest, and Seattle), we stayed in Chicago for the turn of the decade. We're trying to save money, that's part of it. But we're also planning on traveling more in the coming year, as well. Los Angeles is coming in a few weeks. And I'm zipping around the cities of the Great Lakes for work, now. It made sense to keep it close this year. And while the Skylark isn't a regular hang out for me, it's an enjoyable place to spend a few hours, putting away some drinks and just generally hanging around. All around, it was a quiet New Year's.
I've long thought that how you spend your New Year's Eve is somehow indicative of how the coming year will be. There's always been some sort of metaphor in that for me - sitting in a Canadian dive bar with friendly strangers, making the best of a house party in the Capitol City with people don't know or really like. And in some way that's said something about the state of mind I was in at the time, which in turn informed how the coming year played out. This year, we stayed on the South side, with some friends. It's looking like keeping it close to home is how this year really will happen. So, I'll do my best to keep you updated, and hope that this isn't the only post on City of Progress this year.
Photo by alonzoD.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Hello, Old Blog
Monday, December 22, 2008
An October Sort of City
"Chicago is an October sort of city, even in spring." - Nelson Algren
Being away from Chicago during the winter has its advantages. It's not bitter cold and windy, and there isn't 12"-16" of snow in the ground, for sure. At the same time, the national perception of Our Fair City is that winter is so unbearably cold that living here is incomprehensible. As a long time proponent of the long view, (as well as a native Great Lakes Midwesterner), I know that this is not the case.
I landed at Midway on Friday, after being stranded at Dulles for several hours while a serious storm front dropped a snow bomb on the upper half of the nation. When you're driving north through the far South Side at 8P in the middle of December thinking "damn it's good to be back", you've been gone for far too long. Anyway, in spite of Daley's attempts to make us surround City Hall with pitchforks and torches by not plowing the streets, in spite of the horribly cold wind blowing off the lake, in spite of the questionable insulation on the windows of our cheap Bridgeport apartment, I've come to enjoy the really cold weather. (Watch and see what I'm saying in March when I've had enough of this nonsense.)
Although the perception that Chicago is filled with stoic types, who will put on a heavy coat and pull on a pair of boots in January to go about their business, the truth is that we all tell ourselves it'll all be better soon, that Spring is right around the corner, that winter only lasts three or four short months, and once the dial hits 50, we'll all be back out there again.
On those bitter cold days, the ones that happen between Early December and late April, when the weather forecast lines up single digits across the board and the sun brings light but not heat, I don't tell myself those lies. I tuck my head down, stuff my hands in my pockets, and walk faster, hoping that I don't have to wait too long for the bus.
Nonetheless, coming home, taking off the cold and wet boots, and settling down in a warm living room leaves me with a strange sense of satisfaction. There's something in this city that makes the people that live and work here tough. Like late season-baseball in Chicago, even when things look bleak and cold and dark, we just dig in and think about the sunrise that is surely around the corner.
Photo by TheeErin
Thursday, December 18, 2008
On a Journey
I keep seeing this commercial on TV:
Every time I see this ad, I think back five years, when I first came back to Chicago. Moving to a new city can be tricky; it takes a while to put down roots, to meet people, to feel established. For those first two years, when I was still broke, rootless and didn't have many friends, I would wonder sometimes why I didn't just cash out, pack it up and hit the road.
I've learned over the years that I'm the kind of person that needs to be part of some sort of community to feel connected, grounded and productive. Although the overarching use of this commercial is to sell Louis Vuitton bags, I'm not sure there's a traveler in this ad in the conventional sense. I'm not convinced that the people in this ad are are out of their elements, so much as just journeying through life.
What is it that we remember from our journeys? I'm sure I saw the Statue of Liberty in New York; I remember best the French-Soul Food Vegan dinner with the guy we stayed with. I know I went to Alcatraz in San Fransisco; I remember best getting drunk in a series of dive bars, or visiting the Lusty Lady and talking about the labor movement with the girl in the private peep show. I know we went to Chapultepec Park in Mexico City; I remember best sitting on the steps of a Catholic church at the top of a hill, listening to Indians pray and drinking coffee with Vero.I'll not be traveling with Louis Vuitton any time soon (not my style). But as I get ready to fly back to Chicago for the holidays, I'm left wondering about the journey that I'm on. Not just the life journey, but also the immediate journey, here in DC. Have I really come face to face with myself? Have I made this trip, or has this trip made something of me?
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Four Months of Solitude?
Not everyone can be settled in one city, or stay in one place for longer than a few years. Some of the people that I've met through work here, especially members of the active-duty military, have mentioned to me that they move around so much that they actually look forward to it. "I get nervous when I'm in a place more than a year and a half. I start looking for my next deployment," said an Air Force pilot I know. For me, I'd much rather live in one place and be a part of a stable community. I've lived in different places, and moved around a little bit, and while it's an exciting, interesting experience, ultimately it leaves me feeling unsatisfied and looking for relationships that are more profound.
I've been here for one week now, and I'm starting to get used to being in the District. I'm even trying to recreate some of the stability that I have back in Chicago: work friendships, regular places for services (groceries, haircuts, cigarettes). The people that know and see you everyday, who, by the very fact that you drop in to buy a cup of coffee most mornings, or you say hi to them at the bus stop when you're on time, or you drop by their desk once in a while to talk shop at work, know and care for you in a broader communal sense.
Call it the "unintentional community", a situation that looks like all the other lives you see in popular culture, except without the luxury of excising the rough edges that people can brush away in the intentional community. And, after only a week in the Capital City, I'm finding communities here nicely. Work is pleasant, and I've made friends with some of the people there, both among my peers an among some of the management. And, speaking of rough edges, I've been able to work around some of the more awkward and standoffish people in my office, by simply being professional and confident with them while making friends around them. (That's a little trick a learned a while back, and I've yet to not have it work!)
As for the social side of DC, well, I've found Yelp to be especially useful. I don't really like the notion of the online community. I have my own real-time community that I fit into and don't need to send out emails and write reviews as part of some "social networking" scheme to be a part of something. But. Knowing that there's a website written by lots of locals makes it really easy to find a decent coffee shop in a part of town you want to go check out, or a bar with outdoor seating. And, in spite of the East Coast reputation for being cool and detached, I've found it really easy to meet people to hang around with in most of the places I've gone to. That may have something to do with the fact that must of the professional class in this city is from somewhere else, but I think ultimately people are, deep down, genuinely interested in meeting others.
I don't really have a conclusion for this post, other than it's a lovely day in the District, and I've got a three-day weekend ahead of me. I suspect that I'll be meeting lots more Washingtonians soon.
Photo by NCinDC
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Debate Night in America and the Brand of the District
Tonight was Debate Night in America, CNN's attempt to make the presidential political process as appealing as Monday Night Football. And as much as I love the idea of fathers and sons sitting around watching the debates like they watch the Bears, I also have some reservations about commodifying American Democracy. For all of its faults, the notion that some 300 million heterogeneous people have a referendum every four years on the state of the republic is a pretty remarkable thing, even when it goes horribly, cynically awry.
But as I was watching one of George W. Bush's former speech writers analyze tonight's debate (sharply dressed like most of the career climbers I see walking around DuPont Circle before and after work most weekdays), I got to thinking about one of the differences I've noticed between DC and Chicago. It took me lots of visits to many other cities in North America before I discovered that you can't go downtown to find out what's going on in a city. (I think you can only get away with this in Chicago and New York.) The District is, by far, much smaller than Chicago, both in size and population. Population particularly is a significant difference between DC and Chicago; with only about a half million residents within the District compared to Chicago's nearly three million, you can feel the difference just walking around. According to the Lonely Planet that I checked out from the library, DC's population doubles every workday when professionals that work for, in and around the government come in from Maryland and Virginia.
As I was watching these two speechwriters from the Bush and Clinton administrations try to convince Jim Lehrer that their guy had won the debate, I got to thinking about the symbolism of campaigns, and of the modern political process. While the right-wing, especially the neoconservative movement, is on the retreat this election cycle, they're still using the old political short-hand for patriotism and identity politics of the past. And it occurred to me that the District itself is marked by symbolism much in the way that modern politics is marked by symbolism. DuPont Circle, Admas Morgan, The New U, Anacostia, Bethesda, Arlington, Crystal City, Franconia, Alexandria. Each of these places (along with the phrase The District) is short hand for what it says about you and your lifestyle. White, professional and government. Poor, black and violent. Middle class, on the GS and suburban. Military or intelligence.
As I was watching these former speechwriters argue over who could best the other with symbolism, I couldn't help but think about who I see walking around in front of my apartment when I go out to smoke. And while those symbols are different from the ones I see walk around my neighborhood in Chicago, I wonder if stereotypes here are really any different from stereotypes back in the City of Big Shoulders.
Monday, October 6, 2008
You Won't Find Homeland Security Like This in Chicago
Walking down Pennsylvania Ave is pretty anticlimactic. DC is pretty anticlimactic. You look out the window of the jet as you land at National, and you see the capital, the Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial on the Potomac's Tidal Basin. You walk through the airport and catch a cab, which drives you to a quiet apartment in the Old City of the District. It all really feels very much like you're some hotshot diplomat coming to town to cut a deal. It's a neat feeling, and you expect to have that feeling all the way through.
So when I went to go check out the White House over the weekend, I was hit with the reality of one of our national monuments, something that at least most Americans think of as their own, is very much real. The White House, up close and sans zoom lens and dramatic lighting is pretty impressive. But it isn't ABC Nightly News impressive.
The White House is an impressive building, but it's still very much real. Aside from the random protesters parked in front of the presidential mansion, the gawking tourists and the uniformed Secret Service police, there's also a sizable contingent of service workers. Gardeners, custodial staff and building engineers walk the grounds, doing mundane daily maintenance tasks. And you get the sense that it's an incredibly secure building. Except. Except that you can see behind the curtain, so to speak. As we walked around the building, there were gates that police officers were walking through, building staff moved freely. And on the East side of the grounds, we came across a gate that was closed with a simple lock, held in place with a bike lock cable. Walking around DC, I see lots and lots of buildings with wrought iron bars on the windows. And in Chicago, I usually see buildings with wrought iron gates around them. The lock sets are surrounded with high-gauge steel mesh, so you can't just reach through the bars and open the lock. But here's the White House, locked up with cable, like a bicycle in some small town.
In Chicago, that bike would be gone in less than an hour.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
And we're back!
At least for a while. City of Progress has had a busy summer, and an exciting fall is off to a great start. I moved from Liquor Park to Bridgeport - mainly due to the negligence of my landlord. Long story short: $675 a month is a great deal on an apartment as long as nothing breaks.
In the meantime, I've put most of my stuff into storage and am living out of laundry baskets and a duffel bag at my girlfriend's place on the Southside.
In other news, I'm not in school this year! Huzzah! This has given me such a glorious sense of freedom and relaxation, I can't even begin to describe it. Also, I'm traveling to Washington, DC for four months for work, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to document some of the experiences I have living in another American urban city.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Martin Luther King, 2008
One of my favorite things to do for Chicagoist is post stuff that wouldn't normally fall into my beat. In the past that's included music reviews, running around Lollapalooza talking to people that aren't from Chicago, and attending a debate between Ron Jeremy and a Pastor committed to helping people leave the porn industry. It also includes writing the about religious holidays and traditions, and the occasional reflection on an historically significant figure.
Since today is Martin Luther King Day, I did a quick rundown of events in the city today, and posted a video of Dr. King's final speech. While I was looking for information about Dr. King earlier today, I came across a nice set of "rare and unpublished photographs of the civil rights movement from the Life Magazine archive". Life magazine is a little before my time, but I remember looking at it when I was younger and being stunned at the powerful photography it presented.
The great thing about these photos is that they aren't about Martin Luther King. The few times that you see Dr. King, he looks very human, a man and a preacher, nothing more. Yet so often, I think that people lift up the man forgetting his message. The real reason the Civil Rights Movement succeeded is because they didn't lift up a single man, but rather people took his message as their own and carried it forward as their own.
Every third Monday in January the government closes down, the preachers get dressed up, and, like clockwork, the "I Have a Dream" speech makes the rounds in the public consciousness. That speech was not his most important, most courageous, or his most politically advanced. But it's what he's remembered for. As I was reading the unsigned letters the Reader's Whet Moser culled from the Chicago Tribune back in 1966, when King paid our city a visit, I wasn't shocked. It didn't bother me, or cause me to stop, shake my head and think of how far we've come. Maybe I'm cynical. But after watching the immigration debate, and the fury of anger and hysteria that it whips up whenever we start talking about legitimizing the people who have come here to work, I wonder if we've forgotten the dream that so many want to remind up of each January.
Here's hoping the next election changes things.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Spring Cleaning
The recent cold snap has got me dreaming of Spring. There are always a few miserably cold weeks during any given Chicago winter, but they always seem to be so brutal that no matter how many times you've gone through it, you never really get used to it. I know that I'll hate March when it comes, because that month is an evil bitch. She teases you with promises of Summer, while holding cold, rainy days over your head, leaving you stranded for weeks at a time without sunlight.
Back when I was an undergrad, I was getting ready to actually finish my degree. (I say actually, because it took me like seven years to conclude what most people do in four.) One of the required courses was 201, Professional Writing. Luckily for me, I took it with an open minded professor, who taught classical literature and creative writing. So while the rest of the class was wrestling with clunky words like "stated", "provide", and "furthermore", I was writing poems and short stories. At the time I was unemployed, had just broken up with a girl I really liked, and was getting ready to move back in with my parents. Taking his class as a creative writing course was as much about earning credit to graduate as it was about writing as an expression.
One of the things that Dr. Hull would have us do at the beginning of class is spend 15 minutes "just writing". He didn't care what we wrote, if it made sense, was interesting or even if it was pretty prose. "Just write," he would tell the class. "That's the only way that you will get good at it." So the class would sit in concentrated silence, keyboards clicking, laboring to "just write" for those 15 minutes, three times a week. After our time was up, he would pass out a sheet of paper with "flourishes", clips of what we had written in the previous class that he liked.
I set up City of Progress as the next step for me when I was still thinking about what I would do post-Chicagoist. Obviously, this isn't my post-Chicagoist blog. In fact, aside from a few friends and my parents (hi Dad!), nobody really even reads this site. Which is fine with me. That's given me the freedom to write what I want to write. And it's given me an excuse to write a little bit, every day.
Those dreams of Spring have made me want to do the things people do in the early months. Namely, open up the house, step outside, and do some cleaning. While it's far too cold to even think about kicking the doors open and do real cleaning (although there is some light picking-up scheduled for later today), I thought I would do some verbal Spring cleaning. So, in the spirit of Dr. Rick Hull's Professional Writing 201, here's some clips from unpublished posts that I wrote just to write:
So we walked down Western looking for a different restaurant that someone told us about. Which we couldn't find. Seriously, we got to Ohio before I suggested we turn around. At this point the movie was starting in about 15 minutes, and we had pretty much decided that we just wanted to eat dinner and drink at a bar and be left alone.
Last winter when Margaret Lyons wrote a piece for TOC, I went with her and we took both a revolver and a semi-automatic handgun class. I grew up with guns: my father was a duck hunter and trap shooter, so I learned about guns, safety and sport early on, as did my sister (although she never went hunting with us, she did come out and learn to shoot). As I got older and my father got more involved in the union, there was less and less time for hunting and sport shooting. Consequently, it had been about 15 years since I picked up a gun. Regardless, I had no experience with handguns.
I'm certain that there was some B-School calculus in a marketing department somewhere at Walgreens Corporate HQ that put this product on-line. And I'm certain that running to Wags for a little lube and some rubbers is something that red-blooded Americans do all the time. But I'm also reasonably certain that if you're doing an internet search for a specially lined plush throw to protect your dry-clean only Italian leather duvet from lube, spooge and santorum, you aren't clicking through Walgreens website muttering to yourself "I know it's in here somewhere". But who am I to judge?
Image via Michael DaKidd
Monday, January 7, 2008
Winter in Babylon
So, I'm back. I pretty much took the month of December off from this, and writing for Chicagoist as well. It's funny, because whenever the semester ends, I always vow that I'm going to do all the fun things the I don't get to do when I'm in school. Taking pictures, reading, writing, digging through thrift stores. Those kinds of things.
And in the summer, I'm pretty good about doing those things. But over the holidays, not so good. I get all done with finals, then it's time to catch up on Christmas shopping, and visiting the family, and then it's all over. Whew!
Anyway, for the past few years, I've taken some sort of trip over the holiday. Mexico twice (Chiapas one year, Mexico City the next). Los Angeles. Puerto Rico. This year: Toronto. I know, I know. It's cold. But so what? I live in Chicago for crying out loud, so I think I can get down with a little cold. And Toronto is pretty rad.
Anyway, it was a pretty fun trip. We were supposed to meet up with the staff of Torontoist, and we almost did it. By almost, I mean that we made it to the same bar. But for whatever reason, in spite of me stalking through the bar asking everyone if they knew David Topping, we couldn't find them, and they didn't spot us. But oh well. We had a nice, quick dinner at Pizza Pizza, (you'd think Little Caesar's would sue), and then wandered into a nifty dive bar called The Tap. And let me tell you: Canadian beer? Stronger than American beer. I still can't figure out how many kilometers are in a pint, but the next morning, it sure seemed like a lot.
The United States is often called a melting pot; people immigrate here, and within a few generations they have assimilated. Lots of us have hyphenated heritage: Polish-American, Irish-American, Asian-American. For others, they belong to distinctly American ethnic groups: Jewish, Black, Hispanic. But ultimately everyone gets to be American, whether that means weaving their own history, culture and past into the larger American narrative of liberty, equality, freedom and opportunity, or just assuming an American identity.
On the other hand, Canada is often called a mosaic, and while four days in Toronto hardly makes me a scholar of American-Canadian relations, watching TV (in English and French)I got a sense that each group gets to come to Canada and make it their own. There is no grand notion of Canada that each immigrant group melts into, but rather a broad territory that everyone lives in. One group comes, and the others move over to make a little more room.
We spent most of the long weekend bumming around the neighborhoods on the west side of the city, eating Indian food and digging through junk shops. Except for the blizzard we drove through in Michigan, it wasn't a bad drive. And the All Days House 3 Hostel was clean, quiet and chill. And close to the subway. I forget, sometimes, how much fun it is to forget the day to day, pack some clothes, and get lost. If loving Chicago is like being in a relationship, then visiting Toronto is like having a crush. I'm ready to throw a bag out the window and hop the next freight train out to be with my love, damn the consequences.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Define Middle Class
That was what I typed into Google after reading Timothy McNulty's column in Friday's Tribune. As a dyed-in-the-wool classist, his thesis should inspire me to write a letter explaining that the term "Middle Class" isn't inclusive at all. Except that I tend to agree.
The term itself is ambiguous both in popular opinion and language usage. Over the years I've had people tell me that they are middle class; working people, in particular like this self-designation, while folks that could be legitimately characterized as middle class tend to self-identify by more individualistic standards. It's that self-designation that lets America be a "Middle Class Nation".
McNulty flirts with some economic definitions of middle class before settling on the U.S. Bureau of the Census average regional incomes for 2006: "Class, either by income or social status, is real but undefined in our society, yet those conditions underlie so much of the economic, social and political conversation in the newspaper.... [A]verage family income in Chicago was $70,778; for all of Cook County it was $82,456; for DuPage County it was $109,975." 
As the economics of 21st Century America have shifted away from a manufacturing/ production model to a service/ consumption model, the idea of who we are has shifted as well. And therein lies the conundrum of how to define middle class. Within the class strata exists varying degrees of "middle classness". Some hold their position by merit of education, others by the work they do, or choose to do. Middle class shouldn't be measured by income, then, but by opportunity. Which becomes the problem inherent in trying to define a middle class, since it seems predicated on a set of loose, vaguely American values.
McNulty is only partly right. Widespread material prosperity cannot rightly be the sole gauge of class in the US. Economic access and opportunity are much more significant indicators of class than aggregate income data. DuPage County could be considered more middle class than Cook County only because there is more opportunity there. The disparity in average incomes between the two only demonstrates that people living in DuPage, collectively, have more access to economic and social opportunity that people living in Cook County.
Image via mrfontwacko
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
City of Neighbors
I've been digging on how great it is to live in a big city these past few weeks. Being the hopeless extrovert that I am, I need to be around people. Lots of people. And while cities have an inherently isolating tendency to them, it's that sense of a cohesive community that gives me a connection to Chicago as something more than just a place to hang my hat.
Last weekend was the Renegade Craft Fair Holiday Sale at the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse. I'm not all that into the handmade/craft movement, but I get why people feel that making something by hand and selling it in an independent venue connects them other people. I got something nice for my sister.
Earlier in the week I was walking through Daley Plaza when I found myself in the middle of Christkindlmarket. The market was interesting, but a little too traditional for my tastes. What really caught my attention, though, was a crowd of people standing around a musical bike with a box on the back. I couldn't quite figure out what it was at first, so I worked my way into the small crowd to get a better look.
I had found the Puppet Bike! As I was watching this, I was thinking about something that Heidi Schallberg wrote on her blog: "I want to live in a city where this happens." Dreamed up by inventor and artist Jason Trusty, the Puppet Bike pops up around the city at events as diverse as neighborhood festivals, the MCA and Michigan Avenue. “One of the greatest things about the Puppet Bike is how it disarms so many people from so many different places in life,” Trusty told Time Out Chicago. “First it makes them laugh, then makes them dance and sing, and then later on it makes them think.”
In spite of the passions this city arouses - both good and bad - it's that connection to the community that makes cities so great. As suburbanization and sprawl push us further and further away from the center city, and therefore our neighbors, walking into the little wonders of the city reminds me of how good it feels to be with my neighbors.
Image via CAH2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
A Quick Update
I've gotten a few emails from people asking me if I ever plan to update this poor neglected blog.
I do. I do.
It's just that, well, I've been busy. Like, really busy. It's the end of the semester, for one, and I'm turning in projects and writing finals. And I'm getting the PMI Master's Certificate at work. Which is just another hassle that I have to study for. None of which leaves me a whole lot of time to reflect on life, love and the City by the Lake.
Which doesn't mean that I won't be posting again. Just not soon.
So check back later in December.
In the meantime, here's something that reminded me of what it felt like to be four again. And seems sort of appropriate, given the current weather. Drop me an email....
Monday, November 26, 2007
Remembering What?
So the Harold Washington post that had been germinating in my head for a while made it up onto Chicagoist today. I think it turned out pretty good. The Washington story is a hard one to tell, for lots of reasons. It's such a saga, for one, and if you aren't at least a little familiar with the history of Chicago politics, it can be difficult to understand the backstory. It's also intensely personal for many people - even for me, and I wasn't there. (I might have been the most politically astute seven year old on my block, but still, too young to vote, volunteer or take an active role in city politics). Nevertheless, listening to Harold speak, seeing video of him, even campaign ads, brings back such Technicolor memories. I'm eight, nine again, sitting on the floor in my grandparent's living room, listening to the news and my uncles and cousins yelling and arguing about the Eddies and the union and the steel mills. It's as though I've internalized someone else's memories and nostalgia of a time that I never knew.
The girl and I have been talking about Harold a lot lately. She's cool like that; gets lefty politics, knows what she believes and why, but is still curious. Her and I come from parts of the city that many people don't know. Her from the Southwest Side, and I from the far Southeast. This past week has brought back some memories and feelings from a time long ago. Things that happened 25, 30 years ago, things that I didn't understand but knew or thought were bad, terrible horrible things have come rushing back into into my now bigger world. And through the lens of my adult life, they hurt a little more now.
***
I've noticed how easy it is to manufacture memories. Drinking at some Polish tap room on a Saturday night, sitting on a beat up couch at a party where you hardly know anyone, listening to music on an old Pioneer sound system. It's as though the entire experience has already been manufactured to be remembered fondly. It's a disposable memory, created and used as easily as it is tossed aside for the next good feeling. There's almost a hedonistic quality to it. 
Salim Muwakkil had a great piece in In These Times about the air of nostalgia surrounding Harold Washington's tenure.
It may be comforting to dream of those days and gloat about the triumphs and the promise of that era. But the Washington years happened because people were not dreaming or awash in nostalgia—they were awake and active.I wonder if, in all the remembering of those difficult four and a half years, we Chicagoans, like the Baby Boomers in their remembering of the Greatest Generation, have forgotten about how much work, pain and effort is required to really make something great.
Images via Harold! Photographs from the Harold Washington Years, and discarnatequern/Yonah Lewis
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Where Did This Guy Come From?
If you've been following the political football game our elected "leaders" have been playing with the CTA this year, then you heard Rick Harris, President of ATU Local 308 talking tough the other day about Doomsday 3. "Maybe we have to show exactly what a ‘Doomsday' looks like,” he announced in front of the press after Daley and Madigan "declined" Blagojevich's invitation to discuss an agreement on transit funding.
With 26 separate unions on the CTA, pulling off any kind of job action a la New York would be near impossible. Not that it can't be done, but TWU Local 100 didn't just pull that strike off over night. More importantly, however, is the fact that the unions of the CTA haven't gone on strike since 1979 (when Jane Byrne was mayor), and probably haven't done much organizing in those nearly thirty years since. Back in New York, nearly three years later, local 100 is still dealing with the fall out and political retribution from that three-day strike.
So when Daley backed up Harris on Friday, you'd think that he would lay low for a news cycle and let Da Mare work his magic. "Wouldn't you get frustrated if I tell you to do things and you did it and then all the sudden you come to me and say, 'I can't help you'?" Daley said. "This union has done a tremendous job. . . . No pay increase, reorganization of their pensions. Did everything legislators -- both Democrats and Republicans -- asked them to do. They came together with a historical agreement about public transportation." Instead, Harris started shooting his mouth off to the press again. "It might be a situation where I ask everybody to follow all standard operating procedures. If we followed every one of those rules to the letter, it would slow things down considerably," Harris said. "Another option is one day, we decide that everybody is just gonna call in sick."
The head of a public-sector union can be forgiven for saying something obtuse to the media under stress. Most public-sector union leaders don't have finely honed political chops. And why should they? They don't usually have to go to fight to the death for their membership. Not the way their private-sector counterparts do. I'm not advocating that a union leader let the boss call the shots for him. That's bad for the membership, it's bad politics, and it makes Harris look weak. But when you start writing checks your ass can't cash and the mayor of Chicago floats you a loan, it's shrewd to play your cards close to your chest.
Image via TheeErin
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
My Brain, Fried
Standing in line, waiting for coffee at the Intellegensia across the street from my office, my mind on the million and one things that needed to get done ten minutes ago.
Woman behind me: Excuse me, sir. Did you drop some money out of your back pocket?
Me: Uh, no?
Woman behind me: Oh. Because this was on the floor behind you. (Holding cash in hand.)
Me: Uh, wait a minute. (Fishes in pockets.) Oh, yeah, I guess I did. Thanks!
Woman behind me: Well, it was her, actually. (Points at woman walking by with a cup of coffee.)
Me: Oh. Well....
I wanted to buy her a cup of coffee to say thanks. She looks over and smiles as she walks by.
Me: Thanks! Your honesty will go unrewarded....
Woman behind me: That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
Monday, November 12, 2007
One Night, A While Back
Early last Spring, we all headed out to Tuman's one night, and stumbled into what had to be one of the sickest DJ sets I've heard in a long time. Within 20 minutes almost everyone in the room was out on the dance floor. Drunk, sweaty, bodies bumping, this was the kind of dance party you usually only heard other people talk about. By the end of the night Major Taylor had worn us out, Tuman's was closed, and we were drunk.
Caroline brought her cello to my place earlier in the evening, intending to play with Fadil later. We headed back to the apartment, tired but excited. One of those moments you can't appreciate until it's over. Caroline on the cello, Fadil on the guitar, we settled into the cushions lining Fadil's Moroccan memory of a living room. Holly to my left, and I with my notebook, scribbling disjointed and drunken thoughts. Mila sat off to my right, and she snapped this photo.
I was playing around with my Flickr account tonite when I came upon this old photo, and the funny thing is that I can still remember the details of that night, some six months back. The thing I remember most vividly is the sound of Eisenhower's farewell address to the nation playing in the background as Caroline and Fadil made music. It's funny how the confluence of an image and a sound can come together to take you back to a time and a place. Six months isn't long, but that night feels so far away now.
You can listen to (and download) Eisenhower's complete speech here.
Craigslisted!
Craigslist really is the dregs of internet society. It's great if you are looking for an apartment or a job, and aren't naive about the world of work or clueless about the city. My friend Caroline tried to sell one of her old Cellos on CL once. She called me all excited because she got an email from a guy that was going to pay her the full price she was asking. She told he sounded really nice, and even though his English wasn't very good she was looking forward to meeting him. It turned out to be a scam.
So when I posted a zinger in the Casual Encounters section, I got an email back about ten minutes later:
Hi
I read your ad at the Chicago craigslist. What's your name? How old are you? I enjoy the company of real people, people who love themselves and aren't afraid of being that person. I recently graduated from UIC. Things I love: baseball, photography, hugging pups, spinning in circles, listening to groovy music, flip flops, being around my family, ummm, jogging, eating fruit, stretching my body out, and exploring new things with interesting people. What else do you want to know? Tell me more about what you do for fun. I'm being fairly spontaneous tonight, so bear with me.
So if you like what you see we can go from there. Please send pics too.
--
Psst... wanna know a secret? Click here
Life is short. Live life again. Have an affair.
Since I can't resist clicking on the links, I followed the links in the bogus email until I reached the Ashley Madison Agency.
This isn't what I had in mind when I posted a smart alec response to some else's desperate and vaguely self-unaware personal ad. I think the creepiest part of this email is that she says she "recently graduated from UIC". And that she's "being fairly spontaneous tonight". Even though the email arrived at 11:30 in the morning.
I don't know what it is about Craigslist, but it seems to bring out the worst in people. Aggressive, racist rants. Unsolicited cock pictures. Trolls luring the lonely and then publicly humiliating them. Seriously, I don't know why I even look. Regardless, I suddenly feel like monogamy has turned to monotony. So, I think now I'm going to have to cheat.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Sweater Talk
I was sitting on the couch working on this little thing I call my blog, when the girl asked about the logo over the left breast of my sweater.
"Is that Benetton?"
"Yep. I got it in a thrift store years ago. Holes included."
"That's funny how moths eat holes in your clothes, but then it looks kind of cool."
"Right? Over the summer I noticed moths would come in through the back door." I usually leave the back door open in the evening for air circulation. Since I don't have a screen door, the apartment is open to the elements. "This made me a little nervous; like, were they going to eat my clothes?"
This conversation led to us asking Wikipedia about moths. Since Wikipedia knows everything, and everything on Wikipedia is always right, this seemed like a logical thing to do. Turns out that there are only a handful of moth species that eat wool. In fact, adult moths don't eat at all, since they lack mouths (creepy).
The best part, though, was the section of the entry titled "Notable Moths". They forgot to mention Mothra! I was going to login to Wikipedia to make the edit and bitch about the oversight in the Talk section. But then I got bored with the idea.
Image via Japanamator
